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Two Toronto artists catch Mindy Kaling’s eye

If you’re watching Season 5 of The Mindy Project, starring writer/actor Mindy Kaling, look closely and you’ll notice three artworks, one by Maria Qamar, one by Babneet Lakhesar a.k.a. Babbu the Painter and a third, which is a collaboration by both artists.

Both women regard Kaling — who was a writer and character on The Office before getting her own series — as a “personal hero” and role model.

The admiration is apparently mutual.

“Out of the blue, she first started following us on Instagram. Then she kept giving us minishocks because she actually started liking our posts and commenting on them,” said Lakhesar, 22.

“She loves our work. She has some of our T-shirts. I paint on jackets and she has one of those. I think we’re just at a point where we’re almost like friends now, which is just really cool,” she added.

“She started following my account last year and I obviously was freaking out because she’s one of my personal heroes. I look up to her not only as a person but also she’s amazing writer and she’s incredibly funny. I was just fan-girling all around,” said Qamar, 25.

Both women, who sell their works online, began collaborating last year, starting with a fall show called Shame Shame at the Rally Gallery on Ossington Ave.

But it was when they remounted the show in London, U.K. in August, called Love Shove, that they heard from a member of Kaling’s crew that the star wanted to feature their work on her show.

“We were all very exhausted and very stressed out ... but as soon as we get that, we were like, ‘yes, time to drop everything and go celebrate,’ ” recalled Qamar, who goes by hatecopy online.

“As a ‘creative,’ I really appreciate Mindy’s approach to comedy. She has turned all these things that women are normally shamed for, like our bodies or the way that we dress. Her style on the show is very flamboyant and colourful and pop arty as well. She takes all these things that normally a girl would be shamed for ... and goes, ‘no, this is actually cool,’ ” she added.

For Lakhesar, Kaling, who is of Indian background, is a rare role model for “desi” women like her and Qamar.

“When we were growing up, we didn’t have a lot of women of colour to look up to. There weren’t a lot of south Asians in (Hollywood) growing up that were being represented or having big roles,” Lakhesar said.

“I think it’s safe to say every south Asian woman and every woman of colour has so much respect for Mindy for actually going out ... to pursue what she wanted to do. I think that gave us all a boost, like ‘Yeah, we can do this too,’ ” she added.

Qamar agreed.

“It is really empowering to see a person that looks like us and talks like us and is living that diaspora lifestyle on screen and supporting other girls that do the same thing. It’s telling everyone that we’re on the right path,” she said.

“It’s a very big confidence booster. It’s really affirming. We’re happy with what we’re doing and we kind of want to do better work now. It’s really motivated us to do bigger and better things and step outside of our comfort zones,” Qamar said, adding her first book, entitled Trust No Aunty, is slated for publication by Simon & Schuster next April.

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